


It's Too Late To Apologize

by DragonDreads (cjbage)



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, mature content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 04:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17594624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjbage/pseuds/DragonDreads
Summary: Everything went wrong. Now it’s too late to apologize.





	It's Too Late To Apologize

**Author's Note:**

> Bioware owns all of the Mass Effect Universe, not limited to recognizable characters and locations.  
> Any original characters are my own. There is no monetary gain from this work. All I am doing is playing around with the game setting and its characters.  
> Please do not use my original characters in a different story unless permission is asked for and received.
> 
> *~* Notice*~*
> 
> I post only on Archive of Our Own or my personal blog. If you see this story on a different site it has been stolen. See Author’s Notes for any translation exceptions.

* * *

 

 

The heavily scarred turian stood next to the hospital bed and looked down upon the face of the human woman who meant so much to him.  
How had it come to this? Why had it come to this?

His internal musings pounded his brain every waking moment with guilt, and knowledge of what he did. The pain he caused the one person in the galaxy he never wanted to hurt.

It started out so right.

To say it startled him to find out she was alive after two years was an understatement. She found him, rescued him, helped him to heal, and gain revenge against the one who betrayed him and his Omega team.

He opened up to her, and she surprised him again by showing her willingness to take their relationship further than just friends and fighting companions. He admitted to himself; he was more than a little curious about how a turian and human could be together. She was his best friend. She was safe, known, and wouldn’t hold any awkwardness toward him if their attempt at sex failed. So he agreed.

He knew there were others on the Normandy who coveted her. She was Shepard after all. They agreed to keep their budding relationship a secret. They wanted no one to act any differently toward them, or because this ship was almost exclusively human, didn’t want them to treat the aliens with even more suspicion. The crew was coming around to accepting the aliens. With a mission this big, they needed cohesiveness not division because of prejudice.

Shepard treated everyone the same as she always had. He did the same. Nothing outwardly changed. Nothing.

The night they spent together before fighting the Collectors was anything but awkward. It was the best he had in a very long time. By the way Shepard grinned and tugged him back into her bed after he returned from using the restroom, he knew she enjoyed it just as much.

 

* * *

 

When the Systems Alliance came for her on the trumped-up charges of committing acts of War and Terrorism, he told her he would do everything he could to get his people ready for the real war they knew was coming against the Reapers.

Shepard whispered she’d keep in touch, and he took the chance of running a talon down her arm in affection.

He should have known their pilot would see the gesture and smirk at him. Joker and EDI saw and heard everything which happened on the Normandy. Shepard and Garrus having sex together probably didn’t shock the pilot in the least.

 

* * *

 

Garrus spent the first month demanding they listen to him as he warned the Turian Hierarchy about the Reapers. They were about to send him to prison for inciting unrest when his father spoke up. Instead of going to jail, he would be in charge of putting together emergency bags and supplying outposts in case of war.

Garrus was furious but knew better than to argue.

His repeatedly unanswered messages to Shepard bothered him until the second month of not hearing from her. Then he shrugged it off. She probably could not answer or was just too busy trying to get the humans to listen to her.

His frustrations built as time went on. He sought relief in the sparring ring to no avail. His bed partners left satisfied, only Garrus didn’t feel the same satisfaction he had when he was with Shepard, but it was enough to get him through.

Then the day came when the Reapers appeared and all hell broke loose. Now they needed him. Now they listened. Now they came and demanded his input in how to stop them. Instead of sending him to prison, they gave him a new title and moved him up the meritocracy.

 

* * *

 

Having Shepard show up on a turian moon just as they needed her didn’t really surprise Garrus any. She had the knack of great timing.

A hard squeeze of their hands was all the indication he needed to know she missed him, and she understood the same. Protocols and onlookers kept them from doing or saying more. Not to mention the Reapers bearing down on the group. They would take care of the more personal and intimate greetings once back on the Normandy.

He hesitated when he brought up their relationship, unsure if she wanted to continue or if their one night was enough for her. She winked and ran a hand over the armor of his chest and he let out a sigh. He remembered making some off-hand remark about buying a bottle of the good stuff and her chuckle.

 

* * *

 

  
Garrus saw how worn out Shepard was getting. Between the stress of having to deal with so many species making demands for her to fix their issues in the middle of the war before even agreeing to help, to the repeated problems caused by the Council, to constantly losing those she held dear to her. Mordin, Thane, Kaidan, too many innocent casualties of war.

When Shepard passed on the news that the quarians were ready to talk, Garrus grew excited again. It would be good to see Tali and even Legion again.

The reunion didn’t go as smoothly as they hoped. After freeing Legion from Reaper control on a Geth Dreadnaught where not only Heretic Geth were trying to kill them, but the quarian admirals thought firing on the same ship with them still onboard it was a good thing, but then the admirals decided to try finishing their war against the Geth while Legion was trying to upload code to free them from Reaper control. After Tali and two of the admirals clarified that they backed Shepard’s decision in letting Legion free the Geth to become allies with them, the others backed down.

They lost Legion but gained an enormous asset with the upgraded and free Geth.

Garrus thought nothing of it when he and Tali resumed their flirtations over their comm links. He thought nothing was wrong with getting closer to Tali, after all, they were the only two dextro species on the ship, and they knew each other from their original fight with Saren which started the whole mess.

Shepard was always so tired and wore out. Being pulled this way and that. When he could get her to go to bed it was for sleep, not stress relief. His own stress relief came in the form of late night visits from Tali down in the Main Battery.

 

* * *

 

Garrus grinned as he made the shot which broke the thrown bottle. He held his rifle up in victory even though he had a suspicion she let him win.

He looked at her smiling, a bright spot in the darkness. He wanted to see her smiling always, but knew it wasn’t possible. He took the chance on hinting he was ready to settle down and wanted to know if she felt the same. His heart beat faster and a strange feeling filled him when she said she was.

They would figure out the details after the war.

 

* * *

 

The battle for the galaxy was in full force after the Reapers stole the Citadel and moved it to the Sol System. Hanging above Earth’s atmosphere, connected by a beam of light to facilitate the harvest of humans for their genetic material, the symbol of Galactic Unity became a place of nightmares.

Garrus remembered Shepard telling him she was too busy to go to bed that night, so much to do, so much to plan, so much to take care of. He sighed and didn’t argue. Instead, he went to check the Normandy’s guns and found Tali waiting for him.

They only had a few hours before they would reach the Sol system. He hadn’t wanted to spend it alone or doing mindless calibrations. Instead, he grinned and pulled Tali closer to him. He had something better in mind.

It surprised both Tali and Garrus when the door to the Main Battery opened and Shepard stood paralyzed at the entrance from what she saw.

Tali with her mask off, pulling up the skin-tight envirosuit she wore, and Garrus standing there without even his underarmor on.

He sputtered, he reached out to her when she snarled at them both, and told him their bonding was off. She had no need of a mate who couldn’t be faithful or someone she thought of as family who stabbed her in the back. Garrus called her name when she turned away from the opening and walked away as the door shut behind her.

Garrus grabbed his underarmor and dressed hurriedly to catch up to her. He stopped in shock when the red emergency lights flashed as EDI made the announcement they were engaging the enemy. Garrus dropped his breastplate as the secondary announcement played of the successful launch of the shuttle carrying Shepard and her ground crew which would meet up with Hammer Forces planetside and wage the war for Earth.

Garrus ran to the bridge after putting his armor on. His rushed question about Shepard, and why they left so early was answered with stone-cold silence from Joker. After a moment the pilot hissed to get off his bridge and out of his sight. He wanted nothing to do with the turian.

Traynor stared at him with a look of disappointment in her eyes when he headed back toward the lift. He dropped his gaze from hers before pushing the button.

Doctor Chakwas shook her head when she saw Garrus come into the med bay. She met his questions about what was going on with the crew with a heavy sigh. He stood and listened to the doctor explain about Shepard’s firm belief in monogamy and what it meant. He felt sick when he realized she meant what she said about calling off the bonding.

When he joined her on Earth, he’d apologize and tell her he hadn’t understood, then everything would be all right.

Only it wasn’t.

Not only did she leave him behind when she met with Hammer, but she barely paused as she passed him in the room where he, Victus, and several other turians gathered at the forward base. He jogged to catch up to her when the sirens went off warning of incoming enemies. He watched as Shepard jumped into a mini-turret station and shot the husks as they rushed the base. He covered his head when chunks of concrete from the damaged building dropped. When the dust settled, Shepard was gone.

The final planning session took place in one of the damaged rooms of a building still holding together well enough to give them a little shelter.

Shepard gave everyone their missions, then a resounding pep talk. Garrus put his helmet on and went to join her for the final push before another shock hit him. She chose Javik and Vega to join her. He’d always been her first choice… always… until she thought she couldn‘t trust him anymore.

He took several steps back as she and the crew passed him without even a pause.

His apology would have to wait until he could get a moment alone with her. He’d explain and promise her whatever she wanted. He’d work hard to earn her trust again, and her love.

His fingers flew over the console as he made rapid calculations and adjustments to the Normandy’s weapon system. His fingers froze on the keys when he heard Hackett’s announcement telling all the ships to head for the relays. He ran back toward the bridge only to be knocked to the deck of the ship when a shock wave rolled over them and Joker lost control of the Normandy.

 

* * *

 

Garrus took a deep breath as he remembered waking up and seeing so much damage to the ship, so many crew members lying dead or severely injured on the floor. He groaned and crawled his way toward Doctor Chakwas to check on her. His low keen sounding his mourning at her loss.

Eventually, he made it to the bridge. Joker was strapped in his seat; unconscious, but alive.

He did what he could to help Joker before joining a few of the others gathering the injured and taking them to the med bay.

A month later, they buried their dead on the unknown planet, and the remaining crew worked feverishly to make repairs to the ship so they could make the journey back to the Citadel.

It took another three months before the ship was spaceworthy. Their take-off met with cheers and hope.

Garrus sat on the edge of the bed in Shepard’s quarters. A holo of them together taken while on the Citadel clutched in his hands. He barely looked toward the entrance when the cabin door slid open.

He told Tali he wasn’t interested in even talking to her, let alone having sex with her ever again. The quarian turned and left him to sit alone in the room staring at the holo.

 

* * *

 

They arrived in the Sol System several months later. The wreckage of ships and the Citadel littered the space surrounding Earth. After they landed, a small delegation of Systems Alliance met with them. One of those members was Admiral Hackett who made it back less than a month before they did.

Hackett’s announcement of finding Shepard in the rubble and moving her to a hospital met with gasps, cheers, and demands from Garrus to see her.

Hackett told him it was impossible. She was in a coma and not allowed visitors until the doctors said otherwise.

A week later, Hackett knocked on the door of Garrus’ temporary quarters.

Garrus’ keening drew the attention of several others of the Normandy crew.

Now he stood here, in the cold, sterile hospital and watched in silence as the doctor removed the breathing machines from Shepard. A moment passed then the sounds coming from the monitors went from a steady beat, to a steady tone. She was gone.

It was too late to apologize.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the only story of this pairing I'll ever do.


End file.
